Quest for Valor -
Royal Castle Dungeon
The Royal Castle Dungeon map was created using the Quest for Valor project, an Action/Adventure game framework put together by an instructor at VFS in Unreal Engine 4. This level serves as the predecessor area to my other Quest for Valor level, the Royal Castle Dungeon (which can be found here).
The goal was for students to create a level with puzzles and a boss fight using the system’s blueprint ingredients. In addition to that, we also had the possibility of creating custom ingredients and scripted sequences as we saw fit.
Platform/Engine:
PC/UE 4
Genre:
3rd Person Action Adventure
My Roles:
Level Designer
Narrative Designer
Responsibilities
Create the Level Design Document for the level.
Conceptualize, Whitebox, iterate the design and set dress the level.
Script enemy encounters, puzzles, music transition and the Boss battle at the end.
Level Features
Unique theme reinforced throughout the whole level
Custom meshes created to enhance the atmosphere
Small cinematic moments to emphasize specific sections
Transition between Exploration and Combat BGMs
Custom boss battle in the form of a puzzle
Hub-and-spoke design where all rooms are connected to a central room that offers new possibilities as the player progresses.
Design Challenges
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The main theme for the level followed the narrative I designed for it and has the player entering the Skeleton King’s castle and saving the villagers before they’re sacrificed. The design of the dungeon itself must support this, and as such, it’s established from the very first room that the player’s goal is to rescue the villagers. Making this a requirement to access the boss’ chambers ensured that players were also invested in this goal from a gameplay perspective.
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My goal with the dungeon was to provide a mix of platforming challenges and puzzle-solving. Therefore, all the combat scenarios existed to break the flow or offer additional challenges to the puzzles. Each room in the dungeon takes benefit of the design philosophy of presenting a new ingredient to the player and then testing their ability to use the said ingredient to solve a higher-risk problem.
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Since the player's main goal is to rescue the villagers, I wanted that to be meaningful in gameplay. To reach the boss room, I designed a custom elevator in the main room that can only be activated once all five switches are pressed at the same time. Each puzzle and challenge offers a rescued villager as a reward, among other things, creating a series of small goals that culminate in the long-term goal of the dungeon.
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I designed these custom blueprint ingredients so they would move between customizable waypoints and be activated/deactivated using switches.
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For the mini-boss, I designed a cinematic sequence using the Matinee tool. As the player enters the room, the camera shows their goal: A locked villager. When the player runs to save them, the camera shows the exit locked and a monster spawning, trapping the player. As a reward, a cutscene shows the villager being rescued, and the player now has access to the boss key.
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The main focus of this dungeon is puzzle-solving. For that reason, I designed a boss battle that also worked as a puzzle. The boss is unreachable and cannot be damaged. To defeat them, the player must free the villagers located in the arena’s extremities by rotating the platforms they are in while avoiding the boss' attacks. Doing so allows the saved villager to activate switches that lower the central platform where the boss is, so he eventually falls into the lava. After releasing the last prisoner, the player has the chance to activate the final switch and put an end to the boss.
